(I’m posting this video and writing this article two months after it went live on YouTube because I’ve been in a weird place.)

Michael works for Thor Media who was doing press at the Salt City SteamFest this year and invited me to come help out by doing interviews since I am used to cameras in my face. However interviewing is an entirely different animal with which I had pretty much no experience doing, so I certainly learned some new things doing these. However it was a very tricky environment to learn this skill.

My first interview (technically my second, an inanimate R2D2 was my first) was with the man you see early on the video with the staff looking thing, Dr. Thadius Phul. Mike asked him if we could do the interview, he agreed, and suddenly the camera was rolling. In my nervous state, I jumped to the most obvious subject, “So tell us about your costume.” To which he gave me a quizzical look and replied, “What costume?” And I knew I was in for it, and I could see by the glint in his eye he knew it too. In full recovery mode, I fumbled out something like, “I mean you expression of character through your clothing” only far less elegant and grammatically correct. The rest of the interview continued the same spiral. I asked about his scepter, which received the same odd look and glint in his eye as he corrected me that it was an Aether Staff. I tried to keep up with the technovapojargon as best as I could but I’m very nervous to eventually see the footage from that first interview. All in all the guy was pretty cool, and an actual inventor like his character. The staff had all sorts of sensors and feedback and he had a musical device that he had made.

Luckily, my interview skills steadily improved throughout the day until the big interview with Kato. She had these crazy contacts in that I just kept staring at.

I’m glad Mike invited me to help out, I got to meet and talk to a lot of very interesting people.